Marianne Gingrich Tells ABC: Newt Wanted an 'Open Marriage'

John McCormack

In her most provocative comments, the ex-Mrs. Gingrich said Newt sought an "open marriage" arrangement so he could have a mistress and a wife.

She said when Gingrich admitted to a six-year affair with a Congressional aide, he asked her if she would share him with the other woman, Callista, who is now married to Gingrich.

"And I just stared at him and he said, 'Callista doesn't care what I do,'" Marianne Gingrich told ABC News. "He wanted an open marriage and I refused."

Marianne described her "shock" at Gingrich's behavior, including how she says she learned he conducted his affair with Callista "in my bedroom in our apartment in Washington."

"He always called me at night," she recalled, "and always ended with 'I love you.' Well, she was listening."

All this happened, she said, during the same time Gingrich condemned President Bill Clinton for his lack of moral leadership.

ABC posts some video of the interview here. Bob Walker, an adviser to Newt Gingrich, pushed back against the Marianne Gingrich interview last night, telling National Review's Robert Costa that the ex-speaker's ex-wife is someone "who is still, probably, very bitter."